Telework (remote work) means using information and communication technology to work somewhere other than the office, such as at home, in a cafe, or at a coworking space. In Japan it spread all at once around the 2020 COVID pandemic. In the Communications Usage Trend Survey run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (enterprise edition), the share of companies answering that they had introduced telework jumped from 20.1% in the 2019 survey to 47.4% in the 2020 survey, then settled at roughly 50%, standing at 50.1% in the 2025 survey published in May 2026. The plateau after that surge reflects a split between companies that treated telework as a temporary measure and companies that kept it as a standing arrangement.
Setting up the phone environment is a key telework challenge. A traditional office PBX only worked on the premises, but cloud PBX lets a smartphone act as an extension. Staff can place and receive calls with the company's main number from home, and extension transfers work as usual. Whether the recipient sees the company number or the employee's personal mobile number depends on device and app settings, so a test call during rollout avoids confusion later.
Video calls are the core telework tool. Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet are widely used for meetings, sales calls, interviews, and training. Call quality needs stable Wi-Fi and sufficient bandwidth, and a headset with noise cancellation helps suppress background noise.
Two things are easy to overlook in day-to-day operation: emergency calls and line trouble. Whether a cloud PBX extension can reach emergency numbers such as 110 or 119 depends on the service and on the type of number assigned. Where it cannot, the call has to be placed from a home landline or a mobile phone, so the team should agree in advance on how to call for help. Home lines and Wi-Fi equipment also sit outside company control, so deciding up front how to tell a home-side fault from a company-side one shortens recovery when calls drop or audio breaks up.
Telework security rests on measures such as using a VPN, avoiding public Wi-Fi, locking screens, and keeping call content from leaking (taking calls in a private room). When personal smartphones serve as extensions, call logs and contacts remain on the device, so decide beforehand how apps and permissions will be removed when someone leaves or changes handsets. See VoIP basics and the business phone number guide for more.